They say that your home is your castle. But for cleaners, repairmen, and anyone else whose job takes them into other people’s homes, every front door is a mystery. You never know what’s on the other side: a museum collection, a pet that doesn’t belong in a flat, or a story you’ll be telling for years.
We have 14 true stories from people who went to a regular home visit and came out with something they will never forget. These daily tasks show that even the most normal homes can hold the most unexpected things, and that people still have a few tricks up their sleeves.
Someone asked me to put together a wardrobe. The owners were smart and had a lot of books and old things around. But the hostess kept telling me to be quiet and not wake him up. I thought there was a kid in the room, but when I looked in without thinking, I almost dropped my tool: a goose was
I am a plumber. A woman once called me over. When I walk into the flat, the walls are all purple. I was a little surprised.
Then I walked past a room where the walls were blue. I couldn’t help but ask, “Excuse me, why did you pick blue here?” The answer just blew my mind. “Oh, just to mix things up.”
When I was in college, I used to clean the homes of rich people in Germany. I dusted the customer’s cabinets, which had about 20 boxes of hats in them. I wanted to know where she wore all of these hats. I pictured scenes of a wealthy life where women wear hats.
I’m thinking about hiring cleaning services myself now, and I’m a little embarrassed about the mess at home. But my husband doesn’t like having strangers in the house, even though he’s okay with the window washers.
I did insurance consultations in people’s homes. This very nice, normal-looking couple let me into their living room. They told me not to pet the pig as they led me into the room. What?
There was a pig, a sow, lying on the nice carpet. It weighed at least 500 pounds. It was a gift, but it wasn’t the tiny Vietnamese Pot-Bellied Pig it was supposed to be. This was a full-sized pig from the barnyard who was a little territorial.
I would be fine as long as I didn’t bother her. The pig rang a bell to go outside and then to come back in. The pig didn’t bother me, and I didn’t bother her either, even though the meeting was very short. It was the strangest, most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen.
The most interesting thing I found while working was a diamond ring that cost a lot of money. He bought it as a present for his wife before he died. It was in the trap way of the old toilet I replaced for his widow. It fell out of the truck on the way to the truck.
She was a very satisfied customer. She thought it was gone for good.
As a plumber, I sometimes take orders after my main job. A friend once asked me to stop by his girlfriend’s house because the tap was leaking. I went there and fixed everything right away.
I was about to leave when she suddenly said, “Don’t tell Alex what you saw in the bathroom.” I don’t get what she means when I stand there.
Then she shyly points to the perfume. “I use it to make the air smell better.” I don’t like the smell, but I can’t throw it away because it’s a gift.
A friend of mine is a plumber. He came over to fix the pipes, and I had a little mess at home.
I said to him, “It’s messy here,” and he said, “Your place is always clean.” You haven’t seen other homes, but it looks like they haven’t mopped there in years. Yes, they do judge us.
When you take out a sewer pipe and a bunch of stuff flies out, that’s the best part of the job. You show it to the people who own the flat, and at first they don’t get why you’re showing it. Then they look closer, and right away their faces change. They sometimes scream, “That’s my favourite ring, earring, or bracelet that I lost a year ago!”
As a visiting nurse, I went to a patient’s house that was full of clocks. I see clocks all over the place. There were clocks on the wall, on the mantel, on the grandfather clock, on the cuckoo clock, on the nautical clock, on the desktop clock, and even on the little pocket watch on his side table. This guy had every kind of ticking clock you could think of.
He was in his 80s and spent his days winding up and fixing all of his clocks. Some of them were really very pretty. But yes, clocks! I’ve never seen anything like it before, and I’ve seen a lot.
Bottle and jar caps are the worst thing that can happen to a plumber. The caps will work like a valve, but balls are bad too. You think you’ve cleared it because the auger goes through, but it will plug up again when it swings into place to close the trap. Auger again, clear, flush, and plugged.
As a tutor, I used to go to people’s homes, and I noticed that each one has its own “aura.” You might want to leave a house that is expensive and nicely furnished, but you might want to curl up on the couch under a blanket and take a nap in a house that is cheap and messy.
I clean apartments for a living, and they are always so messy that you don’t know where to start. I feel bad for the inside because the apartments are clearly new, but people don’t clean them because they’re not used to it.
I used to work for a company that installed high-end audio and video systems. We went out to fix some speakers that were built into the ceiling. The owner took us to a big living room in the back when we got there. He told us to stack up and then said, “When I open this door, we need to get in as quickly as possible and then close the door again.”
It was a little strange, but once I got into the room, everything seemed fine. I didn’t know what was going on until I saw the gold medals on the wall and Mo Farah told me that the room was set to an oxygen level of 10,000 feet so he could train. That went down very quickly when the door opened. You know, things that Olympic athletes do.
